These two diamonds of Frances I were described by Cellini as the most beautiful in the world. The Cellini Green, he said, was green like a pale green emerald but it shone as no emerald has ever shone. The Peach, which Cellini described as the second most beautiful, was flesh colored, tender, most limpid and it scintilated like a star.

—The Book of Diamonds, by Joan Dickinson, 1965.